


Southern Cross

by queensmooting



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, Family, M/M, Road Trips, Ugh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 02:19:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11174955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queensmooting/pseuds/queensmooting
Summary: Perhaps in a way, he's still afraid of Levi.





	Southern Cross

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is set about a year after ACWNR
> 
> basically I challenged myself to write a long one-shot to get better acquainted with erwin's pov!! I hope u like
> 
> -
> 
>  
> 
> _what heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten_

Levi’s boots are dry when he enters the office. He might not have been out in the snow at all save for the fluffing ends of his hair, the pink tip of his nose.

“Are you ever gonna call it?” he asks.

Erwin looks toward the window. They’ve been having this argument all week.

When Shadis was commander he granted his force two weeks of leave during January, when it was useless to even consider a forage beyond the walls. It had been the same with several previous commanders. For morale, it was said. Let the soldiers remember what they were fighting for. Erwin understood, he did, but tradition had kept them at a stalemate for a hundred years. This year he would stay and he would work.

“I hardly need to,” Erwin insists. “I grant leave when it’s asked. Half the corps has already gone.”

“And the other half is sticking around to impress you,” Levi says. “As long as you’re here these idiots won’t go anywhere. They’re as stubborn as you are.”

“And you?” Erwin asks, meeting Levi’s eye.

Levi’s all but tapping his foot, his tightly crossed arms yielding no quarter.

Erwin continues, “If I plan in advance we’ll be all the better prepared in the spring.”

“It’s two weeks, Erwin.”

“Two weeks I could spend consulting the maps, studying patterns--”

“At least take a few days off? Let people see you’re human?”

Something pulls at Erwin’s conscience, muting him.  
  
Levi presses on. “Look, if you’re gone and the titans come barreling through here then you can pin it on me, let them string me up for treason, whatever. But if--”

“You’re right.” Erwin hunches forward on his desk, chin perched on his locked fingers. He sighs. “You’re right. I’ll think it over.”

He hadn’t meant to sigh with so much apparent fatigue, hadn’t meant for Levi to hear it. These days he could hardly slow his pace by a half-step without the weakness landing in the snare of Levi’s gaze.

Erwin sits up straight, ready to dismiss Levi, but the man’s face is already softer. He sits across from Erwin and leans forward, arms laying on the desk, spine bowing. When he speaks his voice isn’t so brusque.

“You just got this job,” Levi says. “And you’re thinking every misstep is gonna go down in the books somewhere as the root of your failure. That when they talk about you a hundred years from now it’ll be Erwin Smith, the man who gave his soldiers a quick fucking vacation instead of fighting for the world. Am I close?”

“I doubt my legacy will anything to talk about a hundred years from now.”

A slant of snowy light chases the shadows on Levi’s face, lets Erwin see every line in his frown, his disapproval.

“It's not such a terrible thing to let your soldiers recharge. Let _yourself_ recharge. Send out the order before the snows get any worse.”

Levi argues like he's already won. It's something Erwin’s learned about him in the last year. Erwin's made a living of standing his ground with political enemies and abominable horrors alike, but no fight is quite as tiresome as with Levi at his most headstrong.

Erwin doesn't have it in himself to talk this out to its inevitable conclusion. The fumes he's operating on are running out.

“I’ll put out the order. But I’ll only be gone til the end of the week,” Erwin says. “Then I need to be back to begin planning for spring.”

“Where will you go?”

“What about you?”

Levi draws his arms away, adjusts his shoulders back against his chair. “I asked first.”

Erwin hasn't thought about it. His life, his interests, lie within these buildings and beyond the walls. There’s been no cause for personal business in over two years, not since--

“I know,” Erwin says. “I’ve been meaning to sell my mother’s house. This would be a chance to go clean it up, get it ready for the market.”

“Is she moving?”

“Ah, no. She died a couple of years ago.”

Something hurt passes through Levi’s eyes in a fraction of a second. It might have only been the changing guard of the clouds.

“I didn’t know.”

Several things come in mind for Erwin to say. “It’s alright” seems unnecessary, “You didn’t need to know” too cold, and “What about your mother?” inappropriate. He’s just revealed something personal and doesn’t know how much to ask for in return. It’s strange the way Levi makes him feel like a fumbling trainee once again, out of his depth.

“I could go with you,” Levi says. He shrugs. “Make it quicker. Since you’re so eager to get back here and work yourself into the ground.”

For a moment he’s frustrated by his own inability to read Levi. When Hange makes a proposal, Erwin can guess how much it will stretch the budget simply by how much the squad leader’s leg bounces. Erwin can hear any unspoken critique in Mike’s clipped words, any unspoken doubt in the darting eyes of his newest recruits.

 

But Erwin can’t think of a single reason why Levi would want to come along to his dead mother’s old house. Had it been a year ago he might have a guess. Had it been a year ago Erwin wouldn’t be sitting here without every muscle tensed, watching Levi’s every move, waiting for a knife to appear from some hidden fold in his cloak. They’re past that now, far enough that Erwin could put the knife in Levi’s hand himself, bare his own throat, and his heart rate wouldn’t budge from a sleeping pace.

 

All Erwin knows is he can’t refuse him. It’s his fault Levi has nowhere else to go.

 

-

 

Erwin meets with Hange to name them interim commander, only a formality until he returns. The decorum lasts long enough for them to shake hands, then Hange slaps Erwin on the shoulder and goes to make them both coffee.

 

“I’m sorry to ask this of you,” Erwin says. “I know you’ve only just become a squad leader, I hate to--”

 

“What, make me a glorified house-sitter for a few days?” Hange snorts. “Relax. It’ll be a good chance for Moblit and I to make some headway on those new flares. Don’t worry, we won’t burn the place down.”

 

“I never thought you would,” Erwin says. “That’s why I chose you.”

 

Hange brings their coffees over, immediately downs half of their own before speaking. “Levi won’t be happy about this. You’re the only one he spends any real time with around here.”

 

“What do you mean? I’ve seen the two of you training together.”

 

“And half the time he won’t shut up about you. Speculating about your meetings, complaining about the hours you take...oh, and he _hates_ your diet--”

 

“I get it,” Erwin says quickly.

 

A youthful version of himself might have grown flustered. It’s a similar feeling to Mike teasing him about Marie, all those years ago. He may have given Hange a brotherly shove, told them to knock it off, lowered his head to conceal his blazing cheeks.

 

Erwin was lucky to consider himself in greater control of his faculties now.

 

“In any case,” he says, “he’ll be going with me, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

 

Hange’s eyes widen. “Why? For protection?”

 

Erwin smiles gently. “I don’t need a bodyguard, Hange.”

 

“But it’s not a business trip.”

 

“No.”

 

“So you do favor him.”

 

It's so absurd a statement that Erwin looks away. “His circumstances are different. If I treat him differently, it's only a reflection of that.”

 

Hange looks unconvinced.

 

Erwin adds, “In any case, with the rank I’ve given him, we have to work closer together now. It’s not unthinkable.”

 

“Did Shadis ever bring you along on his personal trips when you were his right hand man?”

 

“No,” Erwin says, certain but soft. “Now tell me more about these flares.”

 

Hange sighs, sensing the forced subject change, but launches into the new topic eagerly enough.

 

After Hange goes, Erwin's halfway out of his seat to find Levi before he stops, reconsidering. He can’t remember when Levi’s company became habit, or how it happened. For all he knows Levi has far more important matters to attend to tonight.

 

Erwin sits. He doesn't favor Levi. He doesn't.

 

-

 

Levi finds him in a half hour anyway, bearing biscuits and several complaints about the state of the basement washroom. He doesn’t stay long, but the stars chase the midnight clouds from their eyesight and the whole of the commander’s office brightens.

 

-

 

For all that they’ve improved their working relationship in the past year, it’s like they’re restarting every time they’re alone together. Removed from a professional setting, Erwin doesn’t know what to say to Levi. His own body seems bigger in the cramped carriage. The most terrifying thing in the world became the threat of accidentally brushing his knee against this man’s.

 

“Hange better not be leaving the windows open all day,” Levi mutters. “We’ll come back to water damage all over the floors. How someone can be so brilliant and still so...”

Levi sighs, fingers playing with the silk-fine edge of the curtain. He’s spent most the trip staring out the window, but not out of boredom, as most travelers would. He watches the hushed, frozen stretch of earth pass like it’s the last time he’ll ever see it, or like it’s the first. Guilt tightens Erwin’s chest and loosens his tongue.

“Levi, you can go back if you’d like. You can go anywhere you wish.”

Levi drops the curtain, gives Erwin a cutting look.

“If you feel obligated--”

“Obligated by what?” Levi asks. “Because you’re my commander?” His teeth bare in a half-laugh. “You think I’d do this for Shadis, or someone else?”

“I don’t know, Levi. I really don’t.”

It’s quiet a moment before Levi says, “And yet you know me better than almost anyone else.”

“You know what’s sad? I could say the same for you.”

Levi really laughs now. “Aren’t we a pair.”

Erwin smiles at his reaction, suddenly warm despite the thin walls of the carriage. He thinks he should ask Levi something about himself, anything. But the moment passes. Levi’s smile slowly fades and his eyes return to the window. Erwin is hyper-aware of himself, the minuscule shifts and twitches of his own hands, the thoughts that have become too loud in his head.

Perhaps in a way he’s still afraid of Levi.

-

It snowed like this the last winter his father was alive. Carriage services were suspended and school closed, so his family would send days huddled around the fire, playing games and reading aloud. When the house comes into view Erwin swears he can hear the click of checker pieces.

His childhood home is tucked away in a corner at the end of the wide street. Trees droop with heavy snow in front of the house, sprawling their branches like shields. He feels smaller standing before it all, years sloughing away.

Erwin steps through the front door. Levi comes in behind him and gives the room a clinical inspector’s eye. Patina coats the wood surfaces and the floral-patterned furniture sags under dust, but otherwise nothing has changed.

“Doesn’t look like it’s in too bad of shape,” Levi says. “If we finish all the cleaning today we can get things packed and out of here before the next snows hit.”

Levi fishes a bandana out of his back pocket. He pauses with his hair half tied back, looking at Erwin for the first time since they came in.

“You alright?”

“Yes, of course. I think I remember where she kept the dusting cloths.”

Erwin goes into the kitchen, sinks to his knees on hard wood, slick with grime. He rummages in the cupboard for a few moments before his whole body twitches at a hand on his shoulder.

“You alright?” Levi asks, softer this time. His hand is rigid and there’s a furrow at his brow, like the language of comfort is something he’s struggling to translate.

Erwin thinks about covering Levi’s hand with his own, nearly does it. With any other soldier he would without thought. A ploy to make himself more personable, someone worth following into the grave. With Levi it would feel like a lie, or a betrayal. Levi, who knows him even better than Mike these days.

“It’s strange being here. But I’ll be fine.”

Erwin offers a sliver of truth to let Levi know his trust hasn’t been misplaced. Levi watches him another moment, then he squeezes Erwin’s shoulder and leaves just as quickly. For hours Erwin can still feel the rough, grounding press of each small finger.

-

Erwin and Levi work separately most of the day, but the house is small enough they can always hear each other. Erwin can tell how carefully Levi moves each chair, wipes each mirror. Sometimes he moves so softly it’s like there’s a third ghost in the house.

Erwin never got to say goodbye to his father. Packing away his mother’s things is like saying goodbye twice.

They finish for the day as the light drains from the westward windows. Erwin stands against a rail on the porch, watching his hometown settle in the darkening distance, the pink glow of the sunset on snow. Soon the house will fill with boxes to be taken away and sold for charity, as his mother wanted. Everything else will be left to the new owner’s discretion. Erwin thinks of the little tokens he’ll never see again, his mother’s hat for market days and his father’s reading candles. Then he tries not to think of them at all.

“There’s really nothing you want to keep?” Levi asks.

He brings Erwin a glass of water and holds one of his own, leaning back next to him.

“No, nothing.” It’s freezing outside but the cold water feels good, his body flushed with exertion.

Levi takes the bandana off his head and runs a hand through his hair, shining with sweat and glossy like feathers between his fingers. He misses a strand. Erwin looks away.

-

Later Levi is brushing his teeth when Erwin finds him at the water pump outside. Levi’s eyes go to him, then back to the sky, a clouded curl of ink tonight.

“I fixed up a room for you,” Erwin says. “It, ah, used to be mine, but my mother changed it into a guest room after I joined up.”

“Nah,” Levi manages around a mouthful of paste. He spits delicately, kicks dirt over the spot with his boot. “Take your room. I got the couch. You couldn’t fit on that thing, anyway.”

“I insist--”

“Insist all you want.” Levi pumps more water and cups his hands, splashing his face. “It’s fine. What else are you gonna do, sleep in your parents’ room?”

Erwin feels cold at the thought. “No.”

Levi looks at Erwin, drops of water sliding from his jaw. “You probably can’t sleep here anyway, can you?”

Erwin doesn’t know how he could, surrounded by the silence of his own making.

“They’re not there anymore.” Levi scrubs his hands together, shivering. “And being where they lived just makes it more real. That they’re not coming back.”

Erwin watches Levi, who offers nothing more. What little moonlight there is plays with his hair as he shifts from foot to foot.

“You understand,” Erwin says.

“Yeah.”

It sinks in then, how lonely Erwin was. He never realized it before.

Levi touches Erwin’s upper arm as he goes in, a quick stroke to his elbow, leaving only a few drops of water to soak into the white of his sleeve.

“Take your room. Good night.”

-

The last time Erwin saw his mother was after his promotion to squad leader. He remembered thinking it was the first time she looked like a proper old woman, lines settling into her face like they’d always belonged there. He should have known then.

She made coffee, rich and sweet. The bitter swill at base got the job done, but he’d forgotten what it was to savor a drink.

“Shadis must trust you now,” she said. “If he’s willing to give you a title.”

“Maybe he trusts that I won’t get in his way. He still thinks I’m too ambitious.”

“Well, a lack of ambition certainly hasn’t gotten us anywhere. As long as you don’t let it get you into trouble.”

Erwin laughed. “Of course not.”

For an hour they talked about everything but the past. There was no need to discuss his father, who lurked in the spaces between each conversation, who turned their heads when the light shifted at the window. The coffee cooled with each sip until it was time to leave.

“It’s been too long since I’ve had anything as good as this,” Erwin admitted.

His mother tuts as she stands with him. She raised her hands toward him, then folded them instead, as if she were resisting the motherly urge to straighten his coat.

“Doesn’t anyone look out for you there?” she chided.

Erwin smiled. “We look out for each other when it counts.”

-

Erwin falls into a fitful sleep an hour before dawn and wakes shortly after. It’s an odd sensation, waking up in his childhood home. The creak of frozen trees and the honking of geese late to leave the wall make him feel like he could be eight again, even for all the extra stretch of his legs in the guest bed.

When he enters the kitchen Levi’s fully dressed and digging through paper shopping bags. His body is nearly swallowed by rising sunlight. The night brought four new inches of snow, its reflection glaring bright in the windows.

“How long have you been up?”

“Had to get new sponges,” Levi says. “I don’t wanna know how long those old ones were sitting in your mom’s cupboard. Figured I’d get some more cleaner while I was out. And I didn’t bring enough tea, so--”

“Leave it for now. I was actually hoping to catch you before you got up.”

Levi stops digging through the bag, leans back against the counter to look up at Erwin.

“Would you want to get breakfast in town?” Erwin asks. “There’s a place I liked as a child, I saw it was still open when we went by…”

Erwin trails off, feeling less confident with every word. Levi’s staring at him like he’s growing a second head.

“Or we could--”

“Yeah,” Levi says. He pushes away from the counter. “That’s fine. I’ll be ready when you are.”

Erwin blinks at the sudden dismissal.

When he comes back Levi’s thrown a hat and coat on over his civilian clothing. His hands are already shoved tightly in his pockets. When he sees Erwin his eyes narrow in scrutiny.

“You’re not going to fix your hair?”

“Technically we’re on vacation,” Erwin says, even as he raises a hand to flatten his hair. It’s not a mess, but he supposes Levi has never seen it this unkempt. “I don’t see the point.”

Levi stares at the top of his head for a few seconds longer, and Erwin can’t tell if he’s irritated or not. He still holds the door for Erwin on the way out.

-

They arrive early enough that the cafe is nearly deserted. The owner is still setting up chairs when they walk in. She puts them at a small table by the window, where Levi keeps his coat on. The frosted glass radiates cold.

Erwin pours a measure of cream in his coffee and stirs, the metal clinking against ceramic. Outside a carriage’s wheels battle the snow. Levi watches him like Hange would, like a case study.

“Would you like some?” Erwin asks, nudging the small pitcher toward Levi.

“Erwin, what are we doing here?”

“Having breakfast, I thought.”

There’s unpredictable tension in every twitch of Levi’s hands. It reminds Erwin of how Levi used to act around him, when the possibility of death at this man’s hand waited around every corner. He can’t say why it sparks a thrill in his nerves now.

“Did you need to discuss something with me?” Levi asks. “Is there something going on I should know about? Don’t tell you wanna launch some batshit winter expedition.”

“What--no, Levi,” Erwin says.

The mere suggestion of a laugh in his voice seems to agitate Levi further, so Erwin quickly adds, “I just thought you might like this.”

Levi reaches for his tea, fingers drumming on the rim. “You’re a hard man to get a read on, you know that?”

“How so?”

“You’re so…” Levi searches Erwin’s face like he’ll find the answer in the lines around his eyes. “I dunno. Stern, or something. I’ve never seen anyone take their job as seriously as you do, you know? And then the next minute you’re all easy-going and whisking me out here for coffee and tea for no good reason--”

“And rolls.”

“What?”

“They won’t have fresh butter this far from the capital, but it’ll still be the best thing you’ve eaten in months.”

“I--is that what that smell is?”

Erwin nods slowly.

“Oh.” Levi looks back toward the kitchen. When he resettles he avoids Erwin’s eyes. “Anyway, I dunno. I don’t get you sometimes. But I bet you could say the same.”

“Perhaps. I’m trying to change that.”

“Well.” Levi scratches the base of his skull, his nails rasping against the shaved hair. “Still. You don’t have to waste your money like this on me, you know.”

Erwin watches him pick at a cuticle, worrying the skin around his nail.

“Levi.”

He looks up, drops his hands.

“My father used to bring my mother and I here for their anniversary,” Erwin says. “They both worked so hard for too little, so having a day out was a treat. I was a picky eater so I kept to toast. My father would only drink coffee. Black, like you would take yours. But my mother would get a slice of blueberry cake every year, back when the berry crop was better. My father would watch her enjoy her cake and they’d talk about the old times all morning long. I swear, he looked younger on those days.”

He looks at Levi with wistful eyes. “For him it was worth it just to see her happy.”

Levi smiles. It’s barely a twitch of the lips, ghostlike in the shimmery light, but it’s there. When silence falls it’s as comfortable as if Erwin was sitting with his own family again. They drink and watch the sun warm the icicles at the window.

“Did I tell you I found your baby portrait?” Levi says after a while.

“Did you?”

Levi nods solemnly, resting his sharp chin in his palm.

“I’m sorry,” Erwin says. “My aunt drew it.”

“It’s not that bad. At least you grew into your nose eventually.”

Erwin laughs so sharply he covers his mouth, looking around the cafe apologetically. Levi’s pleased smile disappears behind his cup. Only his eyes peek out at Erwin.

The cafe is airier with the tension gone. Here the painted cafe walls cast a muted blue light, softer than the sky. Here it’s too easy to romanticize the pout of Levi’s mouth when he’s trying not to smile. It’s easy to remember when he first met Levi, how the cool steel of his eyes struck some poetic note in him he thought he had snuffed out years ago.

Erwin glances toward the window, where the skies are clearing. They should return to base soon.

-

The house feels different when they return. Erwin returns to the work of packing up a life, but now it’s not so quiet or lonely. Levi pops in throughout the day, sometimes to ask about an old item of his mother’s. Sometimes it’s just to check on him, and Erwin doesn’t know what to make of that.

Levi’s become something of a shadow over the last year, but it’s more noticeable here, without the growing bleed of distractions work provides. There’s a thoughtfulness in Levi he never could’ve seen coming a year ago. Erwin is certain he doesn’t deserve the blunt force of his kindness.

He can’t favor Levi. For Levi to favor him would be nothing less than unjust.

-

Most of his father’s things were decades-gone, taken in a series of Military Police raids said to be routine. Erwin remembers the crack of torn-up floorboards, the rattle of drawers flying off their shelves. They even took his clothes, under the pretext of giving them to a charity Erwin wasn’t sure existed.

His father’s study is in the small room next to Erwin’s childhood bedroom. It was originally planned for a sibling, but his father’s notebooks began to add up, and a sibling never came.

Erwin pushes the door open. He’s saved this room for last. The blinds are still shut over the window, with a black threadbare blanket pinned up over the glass as an extra safety measure. Dust spins like a mobile overhead. He lights a candle.

The last raid happened when Erwin was thirteen. Volumes had been flung to the ground, the cabinet doors nearly ripped from their hinges in the police effort to expunge all traces of heretical evidence. His mother cleaned up after. Her efforts show in every tightened screw, every drawer as level as its neighbor. He can see her broad shoulders hunched over the bottom shelves, closing books that wouldn’t be opened again.

Erwin remembers the envy of his classmates when he mentioned he was allowed to play in his father’s study while he worked. None of the other children were permitted near their parents’ private spaces. Erwin remembers the swell of pride. He remembers this and too much more.

The drawers have all been locked, so Erwin pulls out his set of keys. He finds the right one rubbed smooth and dull grey over the years. His father’s papers and books look up at him like a nearly-forgotten friend.

Erwin’s lost in words and cartography when there’s a shuffle in the hall. He blinks too-focused eyes and looks up at the candle, dripping low. Its light shows Levi in the doorway a bleary moment later, looking at Erwin’s hands. Erwin cheats the papers toward his chest out of habit.

Levi catches the gesture, sharp eyes darting away.

“Sorry,” Levi says, already turning. “I’ll come back later--”

“Wait.”

Erwin looks down, then flattens the papers against his thighs. He’s sitting with his back to a bookshelf, legs spread out behind the desk. When he shifts his shoulders, a stiff pang spreads sharp and hot down his spine.

Levi takes a hesitant step in, candlelight rippling over his face. Erwin gestures for him to come closer.

“Didn’t mean to intrude or anything,” Levi says. He slouches down against the bookshelf to sit at Erwin’s side.

“You weren’t,” Erwin says.

Levi admires the books between them, runs a fingernail along an embossed title. His eyes catch Erwin watching him and neither looks away.

“These are your dad’s?”

“Yes.”

It’s mostly novels and cookbooks now, nothing of import to the police. Erwin remembers the way everything changed after his father died. How his classmates started avoiding him, like loss could be contagious. How his fellow trainees snickered behind their hands at his theories, his ambition.

Erwin regards Levi, watching him patiently, expecting nothing. He used to be so alone.

“Can I show you something?” Erwin asks.

Levi sits up. Erwin thumbs through old documents until he reaches a map, dotted with white across a field of navy blue.

“My mother managed to save a few things of his right after he died. Old journals and things. She kept them hidden in a jewelry box. This page was torn from an atlas. An old one, out of print now. Probably out of print because of pages like these.”

“It’s the stars,” Levi says.

“Not just any stars. These have never been spotted in our night skies.”

“So they’re fake,” Levi says. Then his face changes. “Or they’re not from _our_ skies.”

“Exactly.” Erwin shuffles closer. His heart picks up, a childlike sense of discovery beating fast through his veins. “Turn it over. They’re named on the back.”

Levi flips the page, squints at the fading words. “Argo Navis, Libra, Crux...I’ve never heard of any of these. They’re star groups?”

“Yes.” At Levi’s confused expression, he adds, “I know it’s not much, but my father believed in a world outside the walls. Any scrap of proof became precious to him. If this is real, if there’s something out there beyond the titans, beyond what we can see in our own skies...”

“Then we’ll find it.”

“What?”

“Whatever’s out there, I want to see it with you.” Levi stares at the map of stars like he can already see them. There’s no shred of doubt in his voice. “We’ll find it.”

His heart swells, almost painful. Erwin can’t think of a thing to say, nothing worthy of Levi’s faith.

“Erwin,” Levi says. “What happened to your father?”

Erwin rubs his palms against his knees, slowly building up courage. Then he begins to tell Levi the story.

It’s strange talking about his father here. There’s an instinct to lower his voice, as if the man himself could turn the corner at any moment and catch them gossiping like children. It’s easier now than it once was. It’s easier to detach from feeling, to let words speak for themselves.

When he finishes speaking Levi is silent.

“We’ll find it,” Levi says again. “We will.”

Erwin nods, staring at his knees. Levi finds another page and angles it toward the candlelight.

“Tomorrow I’ll tell you about my mother,” Levi says.

Erwin’s throat inexplicably tightens. It must be the late hour.

“Alright. That--thank you.”

Levi holds up the page. “Mind if I read this? There’s lots of shit edited out but it looks interesting.”

Erwin shakes his head, and Levi begins reading aloud. Erwin leans his head back against the bookshelf.

“‘Crux is the southernmost constellation in the night sky and the smallest known’--it cuts off here--‘in the shape of a cross. Crux contains four stars…’”

He has a lovely speaking tone, acerbic even at a hush. Erwin doesn’t know how he never noticed before. He gets lost in the way Levi’s voice drags along vowels, curls around consonants, brings to life the secrets of the world.

-

Sometimes he dreams of Levi.

It’s startlingly ordinary, when he does. Levi counsels him, or pokes fun at another officer, or accosts him about eating. Sometimes he’s nothing more than there, another heartbeat in the room. Erwin might as well be awake.

But Levi’s voice is softer in dreams. There’s a cloudy edge to their surroundings, the world a half-finished canvas.

And Levi freely gives affection. This more than anything puts a prickle in his subconscious, the distant recognition that this isn’t real, that this won’t last.

In the waking world Erwin sees how Levi bristles at the quick, casual touches of his comrades, the shoulder pats that conveyed _good work_ and the handshakes that said _try not to die_. Levi holds little patience for symbolism when curt language will suffice, so Erwin didn’t touch him. And save for rare occasions, Levi returned the favor.

Some part of Erwin always knew he was dreaming when Levi would close his hand over Erwin’s wrist instead of grabbing a pen from him, or caress his back when it was time to retire, fingers skittering over each crease in his shirt.

His mind crossed a line once, only once, and Erwin jolted awake before one of Levi’s nimble fingers could do anything but tease at the collar of Erwin’s shirt, before Erwin could open his mouth into Levi’s soft kiss.

Erwin tells himself it’s only the constant proximity putting these images in his dreaming mind. Giving himself this excuse makes it easier to ignore Levi untying his cravat after a long day, or stretching his legs under a swelling sunrise. The dreams are as much a consequence of close-quartered work as cramped rooms and rare privacy.

So he knows he’s dreaming when he finds himself in his father’s study, the corners smudged by darkness, with Levi smoothing a blanket over his shoulders. He thinks nothing of it when Levi lifts an edge of the blanket to settle at Erwin’s side. He moves not a millimeter as Levi’s head leans against his shoulder, then relaxes with a long sigh. Erwin wonders if Levi’s cheek is truly this soft, this cool.

Even in the dream he doesn’t dare touch him. Even in the boundless realm of dreams Erwin could never be good enough for him.

-

Winter light cuts through Erwin’s eyelids and alerts him to the dull pain in his neck. He digs rough fingers into his nape and slowly raises his head off the bookshelf. His back is still pressed against the shelf, and a weight at his arm tells him Levi is pressed there. The blanket from the window had been taken down and draped over their shoulders. Erwin’s movement causes his side to fall.

He had to remember this wasn’t a dream anymore. Levi’s blade at his throat had never stoked such a fear in him as his soft breaths against the same skin.

Levi’s eyes open, so quickly Erwin would think he was pretending to sleep if he hadn’t witnessed him wake this way before, alert and wary. His head turns, hair spilling messy over Erwin’s shoulder.

“Oops,” Levi says. He sits up a little and brushes a hand over Erwin’s arm like he can erase the imprint he left, the tiny spot of drool and the scent of his skin. “You really slept all night like that?”

The ache in his neck pummels like it’s planning on sticking around all day, but Erwin’s mind feels remarkably sharp, well-rested.

“Huh. I did.”

“Hm. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea, yeah?”

Erwin laughs it off like the joke he’s sure it is. Levi doesn’t laugh. His fingers drum on Erwin’s forearm. Erwin hadn’t even noticed his hand was there. He nearly moves to stand when Levi speaks.

“Erwin.”

There’s a question in Levi’s eyes that Erwin doesn’t know how to answer. He wonders if they’ve been this close since the day they met, separated only by steel.

A knock at the front door cracks the air between them. Erwin eases to his feet.

“That’ll be the movers,” he says.

“Sorry,” Levi says. “I don’t know why--was just kidding, you know--”

“I know.”

He brushes trembling hands through his hair to flatten it. He adjusts his sleep-wrinkled shirt as Levi stands. He folds his father’s papers and tucks them back into the jewelry box, the only thing Erwin will take with him. Levi holds out Erwin’s jacket and he takes it, shrugs it on. They move with a guilty haste.

Erwin hovers at the doorway. He’ll never see this room again, this house.

“You ready?” Levi asks.

Part of him wants to take another moment, take in every swept wooden corner before it disappears from his memory. But he’s taken enough.

“Yes.”

They’re kept busy for the next hour, moving boxes into the cart that will haul away the remnants of his childhood. An hour later Erwin brews tea for the both of them and a carriage arrives to take them back to headquarters. The morning’s strange tension dissolves until nothing is different between him and Levi. Nothing’s changed in the way they work together like two hands on the same body, the way they can make each other forget there’s a war waiting to be waged.

But Erwin’s seen the look in Levi’s eyes, the question. He wonders how long Levi has wanted something Erwin shouldn’t give him. He wonders if Levi will ever ask.

He wonders if he’s a good enough man to stop this.

Erwin glances back at the house, empty of every personal touch his mother gave, of every word his father wrote. He already knows the answer.

-

They bring their tea in canteens for the road. Erwin hands Levi his, then settles in his seat.

“Tell me how you like it,” Erwin says.

Levi sips. His whole body stills. His mouth twists, and he even smacks his lips a few times.

“Is this spiced?” he asks.

“It’s called cinnamon,” Erwin says, hushed. He glances toward the unaware driver, then pulls the two remaining sticks out of his pack. “I was given a sampling in the capital. I was told I wasn’t to bring it past the gates, but I had so many other details to remember, it must have slipped my mind.”

Levi touches his mouth like it’s tingling. He almost smiles, then it’s gone behind the canteen.

Erwin remembers a time Levi once held every cup to the light, giving a sniff to check for an errant poison. He remembers when this man stalked his halls with a blade or two concealed in his boots. He wonders when it got to the point where Levi would choose to fall asleep at Erwin’s side. He wonders what he ever did to earn that trust.

“What?” Levi asks, when Erwin stares for too long.

“Nothing,” he says, and raises his cup for another taste of cinnamon.

“You should drink more of this and less coffee,” Levi says. “Maybe you’d shit more than once a week.”

The bump in the road is poorly timed. In an effort not to spit his drink Erwin swallows too hastily, and accepts his captain’s pats on the back as he coughs his way through the sudden bout of laughter.

-

In one week the bulk of the corps have returned. In two operations return to normal. Normal included Levi standing behind Erwin’s chair, poring over his latest expedition plans.

“You should let me lead here,” Levi tells him.

He leans over Erwin, steadying himself with a firm hand between Erwin’s shoulder blades.

“Look,” Levi continues. His impatient finger jabs at the map, fanned out across the desk. “If my squad’s going to be responsible for luring them out we should be at least a hundred yards ahead of Mike’s.”

“That can wait until we reach the forest.”

“We’d save so much time by pulling ahead in the open field.”

“What you’d save in time you’d lose in stealth. You--you all would be targets.”

“Isn’t that the point?” Levi says, rounding Erwin to lean against the desk. “Look, I know I’ve just been promoted. But I know what I’m doing.”

Erwin runs an idle hand over formation lines. It isn’t that he’s unaware of what he’ll have to sacrifice to win this war. But his mind sees every outcome, every path, a tangled mess of bleak possibility.

“Let my squad lead.”

Levi’s conviction is a lantern carving through the fog of his doubt. He wonders how he could ever command without it.

“You’re right. Of course. Thank you.”

Levi’s face lightens as Erwin redraws the lines. He shuffles up to sit on the edge of the desk, something casual in the motion, like he’s always done this. As comfortable as Levi looks from his perch Erwin is equally disarmed. Strong legs cross inches away from Erwin’s arm and he can’t quite remember the last thread of their conversation.

“I guess I should be thanking you,” Levi says.

“Never.”

The word was a note too sincere for his own comfort. He wills warmth away from his face. Levi looks like he wants to say something and Erwin speaks before he can.

“May I ask you something?”

Levi waits, so Erwin says, “Why did you come with me? To my mother’s house?”

Levi sighs slowly through his nose. He thumbs at a chip of wood in the desk.

“You need to get this thing touched up,” he says. “Polished, at least.”

“Levi?”

“I’ve known you for what, a year now? I know how you work, how you think. But I felt like I didn’t know a real thing about you.”

“And--you feel different now?”

“I almost killed you and you still made me an officer. I don’t think I’m the only one who feels different.”

Erwin last went on a funding trip by himself two months ago. He can’t remember what he wore, whose hands he shook. But he remembers how he missed Levi. He remembers how different it was, to have someone to miss.

Erwin thinks of his mother, who once asked if anyone looked after him. He thinks of his father, who died for a sliver of truth.

Levi is something good, something he’s lucky to have. With every day that passes without carving an inch of land away from the titans, Erwin thinks this could be the only truth he knows.

He touches Levi’s wrist, the barest brush of fingertips against the skin peeking out over his sleeve. For a second Levi’s eyes go widen than he’s ever seen.

“Thank you,” Erwin says. “For going with me.”

Levi swallows. Erwin starts to pull his hand away but Levi catches it, his grip softer than Erwin expects. The breath stops in his chest.

“Don’t mention it,” Levi says. He releases Erwin slowly, every brush of fingertips a muscle memory being made.

He could love this man. It would be so easy, and so terrible. But he could. He might already.

Erwin drops his hand and spreads it over the map. A handful of leagues beyond Wall Maria seem a meager reward for a man deserving of every star.


End file.
